


Just Like Sunlight

by literal_trashbaby



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Mutual Pining, supportive shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8655217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literal_trashbaby/pseuds/literal_trashbaby
Summary: when Lance found Keith milling near the fringes of the crowd and made some lame joke, he was expecting the usual snide remark, or at least that somewhat endearing incomprehension that bordered on naïveté.instead, Keith laughed.Keith laughed, and Lance’s world turned on its end.OR:Keith laughs at a corny joke and Lance Was Not Prepare(TM)





	1. Chapter 1

            In hindsight, Lance would realize he should have been more careful, should have been on his guard. If _anyone_ on the team had actually _slept_ in the past 48 hours, it probably never would have happened in the first place. As it was, they had been under almost constant fire from Galra forces for what felt like a year; they were all almost deliriously over-tired, but the defeat of the latest Robeast meant spirits were running high- in short, everyone was just a little slap-happy.

            So at the celebration held by the local population (less cuddly than the Arusians, but more welcoming than the Balmerrans,) grateful for Voltron’s protection, everyone was taking a much needed breather, blowing off some steam and possibly having just a touch too much of the sweet local wine. Coran stood chatting with the village headwoman, perhaps to allow Allura and Shiro a chance to just sit and laugh together by the bonfire. Hunk had managed to track down the chef responsible for the refreshments and was happily quizzing them on techniques and local ingredients, and Pidge had long since disappeared to go exploring. Everyone was relaxed and happy, things felt normal for the first time in days. So when Lance found Keith milling near the fringes of the crowd and made some lame joke, he was _expecting_ the usual snide remark, or at least that somewhat endearing incomprehension that bordered on naïveté.

            Instead, Keith _laughed._

            Keith laughed, and Lance’s world turned on its end.

            He had never heard anything like it. It bubbled up and sparkled like a fountain in summer, it was warm and sweeter even than the wine they were drinking, it danced in the air like leaves in a light breeze; without more of it Lance thought he might wither and die.

            “Your laugh is just like sunlight.” The words fell from Lance’s breathless lips like the first drops of spring rain.

            Keith froze.

            So did Lance.

            Keith’s face went the same shade as his suit.

            Lance somehow outdid him and went straight to maroon.

 _Oh sweet_ quiznak _I just said that out loud._

            And Keith was staring at him with wide eyes, looking a little off-balance and a little sweet and a tiny bit vulnerable and _more than a little confused._

            “W-what…?”

            “ _Nothing_ Isaidyourhairlooksstupid _BYE_ ”

            Lance dove into the throng, all but throwing elbows in his desperation to escape, soon disappearing into the mess of bodies and leaving Keith looking completely lost.

~~

 

 _“Hunk,”_ Lance knotted his fingers as far into his hair as the short locks would allow. “I have _Done Hecked Up_.”

            He was sitting against the wall in Yellow’s hangar, elbows resting on knees and staring at the floor between his feet as if it could somehow save him, while Hunk gently tinkered at Yellow’s hardware, doing late-night repairs on the damage from the day’s battle.

            Hunk paused in cooing at his Lion long enough to shoot Lance a comforting look. “What? Nah bro, you did great. I believe in you.”

            Lance allowed a fond smile. _Good old Hunk, always got your back._

            “I mean, yeah, your closing statement was less than smooth, and maybe running away was bad planning, but I bet it’ll all work out.” He turned back to his Lion while Lance choked on his own breath.

            “ _You heard that???_ ”

            "You know, as a matter of fact, I _did._ ” Hunk looked up and shrugged at Lance’s incredulity. “I wanted you to try their little snack rolls, but you were busy.” He offered by way of explanation.

            Lance groaned and let his head fall back against the wall. “Great. Who else knows my shame?”

            “No shame in it, my man. What you said was sweet, I bet it made Keith really happy. But just me.” Hunk answered, catching Lance’s glare. Lance mumbled a small grateful prayer; he didn’t even _want_ to think of what Pidge would do if that little gremlin ever caught wind of his unintentional slip.

            “I don’t even know where it came from, Hunk. It just popped out,” Lance groaned, “And now everything’s _weird._ ”

            Hunk pulled his head out of Yellow’s open flank to shoot Lance an incredulous look. “’Don’t know where it came from?’  Lance, are you even more oblivious than we all thought??”

            “Huh?” Lance’s response was articulate.

            Hunk laughed and shook his head, setting aside his wrench and taking a step back to look Lance properly in the eye.

            “Lance, we have roomed together all through basic training and the garrison. I have seen you nurse more crushes, go on more dates, and deal with more heartbreaks-both caused and sustained- than I think _either_ of us know how to count. And yet, in all that time, I have _never_ seen you moon over a person like you do over Keith Kogane.” He crossed his arms and let his head tip to the side, fixing Lance’s wide eyes with a direct stare. “You, my friend, are smitten. _That’s_ where that came from.”

            “ _What._ ”

            Hunk sighed, turning back to Yellow. “Lance, you know I love you and support you no matter what, but dude, _get a clue_.”

            “I’m _what._ ”

            “And I wouldn’t worry about things being weird with Keith. If we actually got paid for this, I’d bet good space money that it’ll all work out fine.” Hunk continued as if Lance had said nothing, continuing his work. 

            “I  _what._ ”

            Hunk glanced at Lance and sighed, tightening one last bolt before half-turning to Lance with a pitying look.

            “Look, maybe Keith didn’t even hear you. You two pick fights all the time, right? Maybe he bought your potshot excuse and is over it. Carry on like normal, and nothing has to be weird. Problem solved.”

            “Yeah… yeah. I’m gonna go… process.”

            Hunk could hardly blame him; Lance looked like he had taken a hit to the skull and was still trying to figure out which way was up. “You do that, buddy. I’ll be here if you need me.”

            Lance nodded once and let the door close behind him.

            Hunk turned back to Yellow, resuming his tinkering.

            “What do you think, baby? Think there’s any chance Keith missed his accidental smooth-talk?” a slight rumble that could almost be mistaken for a purr resounded from deep in the yellow Lion’s core. Hunk chuckled in response. “Yeah, me neither.”

~~

 

            “ _SHIRO YOU HAVE GOT TO HELP ME._ ”

            Keith stood in the doorway to Shiro’s room, looking frantic.

            It took Shiro a solitary once-over to nail it in one: “What did Lance do now.”

            Keith launched into the story, pacing and gesticulating wildly as he babbled.

            “And, Idunno, I guess I must have been tired because the joke was _really_ stupid but at the time it was _funny_ and so I laughed and then he said—“ Keith pulled up short. Turned red.

            Oh god, he couldn’t say it. He _couldn’t._

            Shiro finally took pity on Keith, calling him out of his system shutdown. “Something typically Lance-ish?” He supplied. Keith’s bewildered eyes flicked over to Shiro’s before gently dropping to stare at his toes, the feverish energy from moments ago receding.

            “But it _wasn’t._ Usually when he flirts, he’s so…” Keith gestured vaguely, lost.

            “So _Lance?_ ”

            Keith nodded dumbly before continuing. “But this time… I dunno, he was just so… _honest._ ” Keith murmured, staring at nothing.

            He couldn’t repeat it out loud. It was personal, honest and unguarded, sweeter than Keith knew what to do with… and a tiny part of him was afraid that if he put it into words, it would somehow disappear or become untrue, like children are when wishing on stars.

            He couldn’t repeat it out loud, but he could play it on repeat in his mind again and again until he would never forget it: the breathless cadence of Lance’s voice, the way his lips parted just barely, the faintly dazed look in his eye as if he had been looking too long into the sky and had only just come back down to earth …

            Keith vowed to cherish that moment until his dying breath.

            “Keith?”

            Keith startled back to reality and shot Shiro a guilty look. Shiro just smiled gently and patted the bed as an invitation. Keith sighed.

            “And then he yelled something about my hair and ran off.” He finished in a huff as he dropped onto the space at the foot of Shiro’s bed. He ran a hand through his hair (a little self-consciously, if he was being completely honest). “And I haven’t seen him since we came back to the castle.” He curled up and dropped his head into his arms, which were crossed on top of his knees. “I dunno, Shiro. I don’t know what’s going on.”

            Shiro patted his shoulder reassuringly, ever patient and understanding, Keith’s constant support in all things Lance-related-- to Keith’s eternal gratitude.

            They sat in silent companionship, Keith leaning just slightly against Shiro with the latter’s arm comfortingly around his shoulder.

            “By the way, I’m surprised you didn’t down a gallon of space ice cream over the course of this conversation. I’m proud of you, buddy.” Shiro smiled down at Keith.

            Keith, on the other hand, remained suspiciously silent.

            “…You stole some from the kitchen before coming here, didn’t you.”

            A resounding stomach gurgle echoed through the room.

            “…Pride revoked. I’m asking Coran for some stomach medicine.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Lance finally Gets a Damn Clue, and Keith falls further into Hell(tm)

     Lance trudged with his hands jammed firmly in his pockets aimlessly through the echoing halls, dark and empty in the night. Hunk’s advice was practical as always and had been grounding; but a part of him- most of him-- was still reeling from the revelation that he might ( _maybe!_ a whining voice in his head insisted,) have a ( _tiny!_ ) crush on Keith ( _of_ all _people!_ ), and he simply had no idea what to do with this new and vital information other than to walk it off. So, he let his feet carry him where they wanted while he meditated on more important matters.

_Did_ he like Keith? He had always been _aware_ of him- anyone would be, with that whole obnoxious top-of-the-class _thing_ that made you want to surpass him just to see his face when you did, and that balls-out flight style that made anything he piloted look more like a fucking _bird_ in the sky than a machine, and that silly fluffy _mullet_ that had simply _no_ right to look as good as it did, and that adorable little _scrunch_ his face does when you invade his blesséd ‘personal bubble’, and his eyes that danced magically on the line between violet and grey and goddamn _sparkled_ when he wins whatever dumb contest they had gotten into and _oh good god, Hunk was right._ Lance finally stopped his pacing and bent double, bracing his hands on his knees in his wretched agony. _Powers that Be, open the earth and let me fall in. I have a crush on Keith McFucking Kogane._

     How long had this been going on- surely not since the very beginning? Even Lance wasn’t fool enough to mistake a crush for a “natural-born rivalry”… was he? Lance hung his head, if possible, even farther, so he was staring firmly at the empty space between his kneecaps. _Probably._ He reflected again on Hunk’s words, and his own instantaneous fixation on Keith. _Yep, I probably_ definitely _did that. My god, I_ am _oblivious._

     When Lance finally looked up from the depths of his anguish, he wasn’t even remotely surprised to find himself in the observatory. He always did seem to wander there when his head was too full- something about looking at the stars and planets, indistinguishable from this distance, always seemed to calm him, looking and knowing that somewhere out there was one with clear blue water and rain and Veradero beach. He was hit with the raw, almost physical ache of a sudden wave of homesickness, stumbling back against the wall under the force of it, sliding into a seated position and staring out at the vastness of it all.

     More than anything, he just wanted a freaking _hug_ , to be able to cry into his mother’s shoulder and have her pet his hair and hum him a lullaby like she had when he was five. To tell him everything would be okay.

     Absently, Lance started humming his lullaby to himself, watching the stars. Maybe if he looked long enough, he would find a blue one. It would be a little like looking at home.

 

~*~

 

     Keith paced, grumbling, through the halls, feeling begrudgingly better (at least physically) from his attempt at death-by-dairy product-- the meds he had taken (only under _extreme_ protest, re: “Shiro threatened to force them down his throat if he didn’t”) were _annoyingly_ fast acting. Stupid freaky space medicine. Keith had wanted to suffer.

     He didn’t know how long he had been pacing. He was sure the rest of the castle was dead asleep, since Shiro went straight back to bed after he and Keith had finished talking. (Well, God knows Pidge kept some weird hours, but if they weren’t asleep then they were well hidden and keeping quiet, as per usual.) For all intents and purposes, Keith was alone with his misery.

 

     He couldn’t even place _why_ he liked Lance. Sure, Lance was _aesthetically_ attractive ( _so attractive_ , inner Keith all but whimpered, _with his gorgeous tan and blue eyes and his fuckin’_ shoulders _how and_ why _does he hide them under that hoodie_ ), but he was also a _goddamn asshole._ And an idiot. Seriously, he was a plenty smart guy (Keith was constantly impressed by Lance’s tactical mind, and grateful when that same mind saved Keith’s own ass from certain death) but you would _literally never guess_ by the way he acts. Though there was that unexpected kindness that came out now and then and an even rarer sweetness that Keith had no clue how to handle, as Keith _well remembered_ (though he _very intentionally_ steered his musings away from the scene at the village bonfire). And Lance was constantly getting in Keith’s face, though to be fair Keith wasn’t complaining about the chance to look at those glorious _blues_ of his _oh damn I’m doing it again._ Keith buried his face in his hands where he stood, groaning in frustration. Somehow every time he tried to reason with himself over Lance he just wound up listing as many things in the ‘pros’ side as the ‘cons’. And then more pros, because apparently Keith is Weak like that.

     He wanted to scream. At Lance, at himself, at the damn stars themselves if it would change anything.

     To Hell with every last piece of this. Keith did an about-face and pointed himself towards the holodeck, kicking nonexistent rocks as he went and looking as surly as anyone his age had ever looked in the history of all life in the universe. He was going to go beat up the Gladiator until he straight-up passed out in the training room. They could find him there in the morning.

 

     Before he stepped into the training deck, however, an echo down the hallway made him pause. Was that… singing? Keith could swear he caught another few notes dancing just at the outside edges of his hearing. He thought with a suppressed chill to when the ship’s core had been corrupted, and his hand drifted unconsciously towards the knife he kept at his belt. On silent feet he slipped back into the hallway and followed the sound to its source. As he drew closer he could hear more, stray notes forming snippets and phrases; words began to form from abstract sounds, and though he couldn’t understand the language he thought it sounded somehow familiar.

     He was slightly surprised to find that it was only a few doors down the (admittedly long) hallway, pausing with his back pressed to the open arch of the observatory door and peering around the edge of it to find the source.

 

     Oh, if it was physically possible to melt on the spot.

     Lance sat against the opposite wall in profile to Keith, staring out the floor-to-ceiling observatory window with the outlines of his features painted silver in the starlight. Singing to himself alone on the far side of the room, Lance seemed somehow smaller, unguarded.

     But bury Keith in red roses, Lance could _sing_. His sweet, gently ornamented tenor flowed and shimmered like the ocean Keith knew Lance missed so much, what Keith now recognized as Spanish falling from Lance’s lips in sweet golden cadences. Every phrase, every note, cried _home, home, home_.

     “What the heck, man, your _singing_ is what’s like sunlight!”

     Lance broke off with an unceremonious squawk, scrambling to face the intruder and clutching his pearls dramatically.

     “The _fuck,_ dude?!”

     Keith flushed, mumbling: “I said you sing like sunlight.”

     He could get used to seeing Lance that shade of pink.

     Crossing the room with hesitant steps, he tentatively slid down the wall next to Lance, who still seemed to be in several different kinds of shock, watching Keith with wide eyes.

     “Can you keep doing it?”

     Lance eyeballed Keith out of the corner of his eye, trying to read him, before he closed his eyes, taking a breath, and resumed singing, shaky at first in front of his audience but levelling out soon enough. Keith watched him with unguarded fondness for a moment before leaning against the wall and just taking it in, letting his eyes drift shut.

     Good god, he was in deep.

 

     Lance didn’t notice Keith drifting off next to him until Keith’s head gently landed on his shoulder and the tiniest of all snores possible escaped him. Lance looked down in surprise, trailing off. For the second time that evening his heart stuttered, although this was much more pleasant than Keith barging in and damn near giving Lance a heart attack. As a matter of fact, Lance found himself staring. Keith’s ridiculous bangs hung messily over his eyes, and Lance carefully brushed them to the side. Some of them fell back stubbornly, but Lance still had a fairly clear view of Keith’s peaceful face, more relaxed than Lance ever remembered seeing it. Lance decided he liked it. Keith’s long lashes pressed against his cheekbones. If he cared to, Lance could count the few tiny, barely visible freckles scattered across the bridge of Keith’s nose. Or he could just wonder at the slight parting of Keith’s full lips.

     Lance wondered how in any hell he had _ever_ convinced himself that his feelings for Keith were literally any other thing than tender adoration.

 

~*~

 

     “These dumb babies.”

     Hunk covered the sleeping Paladins with a blanket as he and Shiro stood over Lance and Keith, tucked against each other and snoring just slightly. Hunk crossed his arms while Shiro nodded in agreement.

     “They need so much help.”

 

~bonus~

     “So like, we still get wingman points for this, right?” Hunk turned to Shiro. “I think we’ve earned it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HERE  
> could this have stood another five rounds of editing or so??   
> probably, but true to form i just kinda decided "fuckit, i'm done"


End file.
